Bruni Quotes & Sayings

I can no longer seduce because I love my husband ... I don't want to hurt him. I am no longer a man-eater. — Carla Bruni

Despite all the challenges facing higher education in America, from mounting student debt to grade inflation and erratic standards, our system is rightly the world's envy, and not just because our most revered universities remain on the cutting edge of research and attract talent from around the globe. We also have a plenitude and variety of settings for learning that are unrivaled. In light of that, the process of applying to college should and could be about ecstatically rummaging through those possibilities and feeling energized, even elated, by them. But for too many students, it's not, and financial constraints aren't the only reason. Failures of boldness and imagination by both students and parents bear some blame. The information is all out there. You just have to look. — Frank Bruni

My dream life is just to go back to my job full-time. And be with my family. You know, regular dreams, common dreams that everyone has. — Carla Bruni

I've ended up becoming my mother in some respects, despite my eight years of analysis! — Carla Bruni

I find that talking about myself is often the most boring thing in the world. Sixty per cent of interviews I find mechanical. — Carla Bruni

Campaigns waged with lies presage governments racked by distrust. The sclerosis starts there. — Frank Bruni

My mother was a classical pianist and my stepfather was an industrialist who was passionate about composing contemporary music. — Carla Bruni

Aboard the gondola, Giacomo Foscarini sat facing Mathias. They were crossing the Canal Grande, then they would navigate around San Marco and return. Foscarini loved to travel around Venice this way. They stopped briefly at a mooring near the bridge to the Rialto, and Foscarini had a servant fetch green olives, fresh Piacenza cheese, a few sausages from Modena, and wine that had just been delivered from Crete. The nobleman often dined aboard his gondola, looking out over the city, watching his world. "Seen from this vantage point, Venice doesn't seem like it's in any of its terrible troubles at all magister," said Foscarini. — Riccardo Bruni

But that day it was raining, and since they couldn't very well sit on the rooftop in the rain to watch the flotilla parade, they stayed in the little room that led to the roof. It had just one tiny window through which the gray light of day filtered in. They sat on the floor, and Lorenzo's senses were aroused by the sound of the rain falling outside, the musky smell of his own body, and the fragrant scent of Caterina's hair. A single blonde strand wound down her slim neck.

They kissed, taking off their rain-washed summer clothes so that their bodies pressed, naked, against one another. Long, delicate lovemaking. Caresses, kisses, shivers, and sighs of delight.

Lorenzo would have gladly spend the rest of his life preserved in that single moment, as if in amber, abandoning reality to live in the memory of that one single day. — Riccardo Bruni

My fear is that these kids are always going to be evaluating their self-worth in terms of whether they hit the next rung society has placed in front of them at exactly the time that society has placed it. And that's dangerous, because you're going to slip and fall in your life. — Frank Bruni

I suppose there are people who can pass up free guacamole, but they're either allergic to avocado or too joyless to live. — Frank Bruni

With a more expansive stretch, there's a better chance that I'll be around at the precise, random moment when one of my nephews drops his guard and solicits my advice about something private. Or when one of my nieces will need someone other than her parents to tell her that she's smart and beautiful. — Frank Bruni

But I'm very careful with opinions because I never know what the truth is. When I read what the press says about me, I don't really believe what it says about other people. — Carla Bruni

After all, a creature without passionate conviction doesn't cling to extremes. He surveys the scenery and makes sure his outfit doesn't clash. — Frank Bruni

In reality, I don't see myself as a man hunter. In fact, when it comes to love, I am rarely the one to make the first move. — Carla Bruni

When I met Eric Clapton, I was a very young girl. I was 20 years old. And we were linked for a very short time, and then we became friends. And then we lost touch, which I'm really sorry about. — Carla Bruni

I love English rock music the best and have always been fascinated by The Clash, especially Joe Strummer, their singer. — Carla Bruni

Shiatsu, deep-tissue or maybe even Rolfing: Which manner of pummeling becomes a cephalopod most? — Frank Bruni

I like peace and solitude and silence. — Carla Bruni

Rejection was arbitrary. Rejection was survivable. — Frank Bruni

Are you telling me that the polite little note I sent my college alumni magazine has, by some unbeknownst series of errors, come to be printed in The Paper of Record, instead? What a fiasco! — Frank Bruni

I'm not at all an active feminist. On the contrary, I'm a bourgeois. I love family life, I love doing the same thing every day. — Carla Bruni

He was going to hurt the people he hated, but inside he didn't feel any real sense of satisfaction. He hated them all the more for having made him feel so small, so petty and mean, which was all he felt just then. But it wasn't enough to stop him. — Riccardo Bruni

College is a singular opportunity to rummage through and luxuriate in ideas, to give your brain a vigorous workout and your soul a thorough investigation, to realize how very large the world is and to contemplate your desired place in it. — Frank Bruni

Will there ever come a day when you put yourself first?"
"No, that day will never come."
"You're crazy, my old man."
"It will never come because I've finally realized that I want you by my side, now and forever. That I can no longer be just myself, standing alone. I need more."
Angelica's eyes filled with tears. She looked like she was fighting to hold them back.
"You really are crazy."

-Conversation between Mathias Munster and Angelica Zanon — Riccardo Bruni

[Gore] tended to drone on and on, in singsong, narcotizing cadences best endured by the heavily caffeinated. — Frank Bruni

I don't know what you're getting yourself into," said Majid, "but I know I don't like it. Some things in Venice are pure poison." Majid's eyes looked like they could bore through a stone wall. "If someone has put you on a demon's tracks, you'd better make sure the demon doesn't find you first."

"What's that supposed to mean," asked Mathias.

"It means behind every hand stained with blood there's another, and that one stays clean." Majid leaned in close, lowering his voice to a whisper. "What I'm saying is that behind a demon, there's always someone holding the creature on a leash. — Riccardo Bruni

His life was cheap to him. Perhaps that's why he rode faster than any other, perhaps that was why he had walked into the house of Aquila without the quickening of a heartbeat: because at the heart of his courage was the fact that he really did not care if he died. Such courage is not true courage. True courage is when a man quakes with fear in the face of death, yet still risks his life for something he cares about. Ricardo Bruni did not know this yet, but he was to learn it soon. — Marina Fiorato

Love lasts a long time but burning desire lasts two to three weeks. — Carla Bruni

The inclination to consider UPenn, not attendance at UPenn, is the key to future earnings. — Frank Bruni

It would never occur to me to judge anyone. — Carla Bruni

But too many kids get to college and try to collapse it, to make it as comfortable and recognizable as possible. They replicate the friends and friendships they've previously enjoyed. They join groups that perpetuate their high school cliques. Concerned with establishing a "network" they seek out peers with aspirations identical to their own. In doing so, they frequently default to a clannishness that too easily becomes a lifelong habit. ....Open your laptops . Delete at least one of every four bookmarks. Replace it with something entirely different, even anti ethical. Go to twitter, Facebook etc start falling or connecting with views that diverge from your own. Conduct your social lives along the same lines, mixing it up. Do not go only to the campus basketball games....wander beyond the periphery of campus, and not to find equally enchanted realms-if you study abroad, don't choose the destination for its picturesqueness-but to see something else. — Frank Bruni

Thin people, God bless them, God curse them, don't get it: If you're not thin, you need to be careful and conscious about when and how you suitors initially see you. — Frank Bruni

I'm monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy and polyandry. — Carla Bruni

I don't believe in cutting out people from the past. It doesn't give strength; it just gives loneliness. — Carla Bruni

In some perfect world where human nature is less messy and history less fraught, any and all people who had ever suffered discrimination would find common cause, gathering together under one big anti-bigotry banner. — Frank Bruni

He thought back to everything that happened the night before: the hooded men, the chase, his tired heart and weak legs. The very moment in which Mathias realized it was over, when he'd decided to sacrifice his own life in order to save the young man by his side, the monk had found something fundamental inside himself. Deep in his soul, in that hidden place that can only be discovered when a person finds himself poised on the edge of the abyss, gasping what he thought was his last breath, he'd suddenly seen it. Only then did he realize what he held dearest in his heart. Because the last thing to cross his mind, what he'd thought about the moment he'd spun around, prepared to impale himself on the blade, had been a face. No thoughts of God or faith or any other saint. A face. That's when everything became clear. — Riccardo Bruni

The mother of a student in Europe who was between his junior and senior years of high school called Motto in a frantic state. She had just read somewhere that college admissions offices looked for kids who had spent their summers in enriching ways, ideally doing charity work, and her son was due to be on vacation with the rest of the family in August. "Should we ditch our plans," she asked Motto, "and have him build dirt roads?" Motto reminded her that she lived in a well-paved European capital. "Where would these dirt roads be?" he said. "India?" she suggested. "Africa?" She hadn't worked it out. But if Yale might be impressed by an image of her son with a small spade, large shovel, rake or jackhammer in his chafed hands, she was poised to find a third-world setting that would produce that sweaty and ennobling tableau. — Frank Bruni

Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thought in a manner all their own, and I'm convinced that the shattered world has less hope for repair if reading becomes an ever smaller part of it. — Frank Bruni

It's always astounded me to have succeeded at having kids. It's crazy! — Carla Bruni

I am cursed with computers; something always goes wrong. — Carla Bruni

I thought marriage was something very quiet and very regular and very bourgeois. — Carla Bruni

I'm crazy about Israel. It's full of life. — Carla Bruni

There are always entire worlds that exist alongside the one you think you've chosen to live in. Sometimes you chose the worlds, and sometimes they chose you. — Sarah Bruni

It seems like someone is using wars and our economic crisis to spread distrust and rancor among the population. In times like these, those are dangerous feelings to spread around. — Riccardo Bruni

I care about writing music and playing my music. — Carla Bruni

I'm not really a femme fatale. — Carla Bruni

When I was having my hair and make-up done backstage at a fashion show, I would sneak in a copy of Dostoevsky and read it inside a copy of Elle or Vogue. But it would be pretentious of me to say I was more intelligent than the other supermodels. — Carla Bruni

You live in a damnably twisted and convoluted world," replied Mathias. "And you are trampling accross it with all the delicacy of an elephant in a glass shop!" -Conversation between Mathias Munster and Giacomo Foscarini — Riccardo Bruni

I want a man with nuclear power. — Carla Bruni

I think it would be shocking for me to pretend not to have any past. And also, it would be a lie. — Carla Bruni

I must represent France, and I want to be elegant, and I want the French people to be proud of me, you know. — Carla Bruni

My favorite Congressional incongruity: ... Red State legislators galumphing from meeting to meeting in full pancake makeup. Estee Lauder may well make more money on Capitol Hill than in Beverly Hills. — Frank Bruni

Moses Luzzatto always said to be patient during the hard times, that they would have to endure and make sacrifices while they waited for better times to come. He urged Simone and the other Jewish boys not to provoke the Venetians, saying they should remain separate and focus on their work. He said their traditions were crucial to their identity, just as they were for their fathers before them. — Riccardo Bruni

Marriage is another trap. If you are someone who likes independence, it's another stamp against that. And you have to swear to fidelity. — Carla Bruni

As she said this, she tossed him one of her blue-and-gray-checked tea towels to use as an apron. She was wearing a blue summer dress and tucked her towel-apron into her red belt. Today he could see that her blond hair was tinged with silver at the temples and that the former confusion and terror had left her eyes.
Soon the windowpanes had misted up; the gas flames were hissing under pots and pans; the white wine, shallots and cream sauce was simmering; and in a heavy pan the olive oil was browning potatoes sprinkled with rosemary and salt.
They were chatting away as if they'd known each other for years and had simply lost touch for a while. About Carla Bruni, and about how male sea horses carried their young around in a pouch on their stomachs. They talked about fashion and about the trend for salt with added flavorings, and of course they gossiped about their neighbors. — Nina George

There was no way to compare the feeling of being forgiven to anything else in this world. — Sarah Bruni

I only judge people in one way. I like them or I don't. But I don't have preconceived ideas. — Carla Bruni

In the middle of the night, it was always the same. The dreams told the dreamer, pay attention. The dreams told the dreamer, consider this and consider that, and for the most part, it was fine to consider these things, to engage the subconscious in the exercise of willful consideration.
Always the dreams told the dreamer, Let's pretend the world is this way for a few minutes, I mean, no big deal, no commitment, just something to do until you wake up.
Come on, say the dreams, it'll be fun. — Sarah Bruni

We don't need to be feminist in my generation. — Carla Bruni

The church must change, Brother,' Gheorg had said one day long ago, back when they were still theology students at the University of Leipzig. Christian faith cannot be the tool of a monarch who sells God's pardon in exchange for money and power. Our Lord speaks to ALL men, Mathias. The Church must be a place where all men can meet and pray, not a place where they must submit to the power of other men. God's word must reach everyone equally. — Riccardo Bruni

I wish I could say that Carla Bruni's Guess campaign at age 16 led to her current role as First Lady of France, but that might be a stretch. — Paul Marciano

He communicates authenticity to an electorate ravenous for it. — Frank Bruni

Are you afraid a demon has escaped Hell in order to descend upon the Venetians?"

"I think there are a few who'd deserve it, but I'm also a man of science, and I believe that we all carry our own private infernos inside ourselves."

-Conversation between Majid and Mathias — Riccardo Bruni

But fairness is where we're heading, at least in regard to marriage, which has emerged as the terrain on which Americans are hashing out their feelings about gays and lesbians. The trajectory is undeniable. The trend line is clear. And the choice before the justices is whether to be handmaidens to history, or whether to sit it out. — Frank Bruni

Graduates fared better if, during college, they did any one of these: developed a relationship with a mentor; took on a project that lasted a semester or more; did a job or internship directly connected to their chosen field; or became deeply involved in a campus organization or activity (as opposed to minimally involved in a range of things). — Frank Bruni

You must always conduct your business with a clear mind, free of personal issues. Until you learn this simple fact, you'll never get anything out of life. -Moses Luzzatto — Riccardo Bruni

I hoped that, you know, France wouldn't mind about, you know, the wife of their president to having a job. — Carla Bruni